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Month: December 2012

When people ask me what I hope to learn from my family history research there are two things I usually say are particularly important to me. First, like most members of the diaspora, I yearn to know where in Africa my ancestors originated. For at least one ancestor I want to know what tribe they belonged to, the language they spoke, the name they answered to, the exact piece of earth they slept and worked on, and so on. Following from that, I’d also like to know the stories of their descendents that endured slavery. Continue reading →

The discovery of my great-grandmother Adele “Josephine” Cadignan’s birth record is perhaps my most exciting find yet because it contains quite a bit of new information, including some that allows me to fill in a few slots farther back in the family tree than I’ve ever been able to go before. Let’s review the most important new facts, line by line: Continue reading →

For the 4.5 of you that follow my blog, by now you’ve become familiar with my pattern. I have little bursts of productivity lasting anywhere from a few days to a few months and then things die down, life or fatigue step in, and I disappear from the blogosphere for a while. Various things have roused me out of my previous genealogy hibernations, usually family trips and/or overwhelming, crippling, self-inflicted guilt. This time it’s different.

Another genealogist on the other side of the country came across my blog when he was researching his own ancestral ties to Martinique (you can see the comments from Luishere and here). Luckily for me, genealogists, like all researchers (and like all humans, really) are curious people. He did a little hunting around to see if he could track down my great-grandmother Adele “Josephine” Cadignan…and he did! Continue reading →